Hypergrid Adventurers Club meet #23: Exploring Nuclear Research at CERN

In real life, CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

The region CERN on New World Grid features detailed recreations of real life architecture at CERN as well self-guided tours of models of particle accelerators.

Read on for a full transcript and many photos of our adventure.

For more information about the Hypergrid Adventurers Club and how you can join us, please see our homepage. You can also follow our club’s tweets at #HGAC.

Pathfinder Lester: ok, I’ll kick things off with the regular introductory remarksPathfinder Lester: Welcome to the Hypergrid Adventurers Club! Thank you all for joining us today.Pathfinder Lester: The first 30 min of each meeting is spent on introductions and an open discussion.Pathfinder Lester: And for the second 30 min of each meeting, we will make some Hypergrid jumps to visit and explore an interesting location on the Hypergrid.Pathfinder Lester: To start, everyone please jump in and say a few words about yourself and your projects/interests in open chat. This is always a good opportunity for networking. 🙂Mel Blauvelt: I started out as Melchizedek…but since that was a rather poor choice I switched to Mel, for nowPathfinder Lester: I post a full report and transcript of each meeting’s open chat on my blog, so this is also a chance for you to share information with everyone who reads the blog.Pathfinder Lester: And if you say anything in open chat that you would NOT like to be posted on my blog, please just say so in chat and I will redact your comments.Pathfinder Lester: Mel is easier to remember 🙂Frank Avatar: Cool.. 🙂Mel Blauvelt: Well I’m still a philosopher in RL, interested in interdisciplinary scientific research, worldview construction and metrics at the momentFrank Avatar: Thats a mouthfull 🙂Pathfinder Lester: I’m Pathfinder Lester, John Lester in real life. I used to work at Linden Lab from 2005-2010. Now I work at ReactionGrid Inc. as Director of Community Development.Pathfinder Lester: my blog is at http://becunningandfulloftricks.comFrank Avatar: Alot ode ex LL people floating around in the grids now, I seem to think that can only help overall. 🙂Mel Blauvelt: I certainly hope so, yeahPathfinder Lester: thanks 🙂Pathfinder Lester: many of us are still very interested in virtual worlds.Pathfinder Lester: and many of us are now focusing on the bigger picture. 😉Frank Avatar: I agree the “Big Picture” is keyMel Blauvelt: There was interest yesterday from the Architecture Working Group in SL to experiment/contribute to Hypergrid tooPathfinder Lester: mel, oh that’s very cool!Vanish Seriath: Okay, in short: I’m V of tgib.co.ukVanish Seriath: Hi everyone.Frank Avatar: HiPathfinder Lester: great to see you again VAnge Menges: Yes V, and I have brought your beers, lolVanish Seriath: Aww, great.Vanish Seriath: I guess sudo get-me-a-beer worked.Pathfinder Lester: belgian beer! thank you Ange!

Ange Menges: well hope it work, first time I rezed the box, animations vanishedAnge Menges: don’t know whyPathfinder Lester: V, I’m also a longtime fan of The Sandman graphic novels…..so I’ve left a little Sandman reference here on Pathlandia for you to find. 😉Vanish Seriath: Aw, I just got El hooked on them.Pathfinder Lester: hint: it’s near the Statue am Berg. 😉Vanish Seriath: Hah, okay.Pathfinder Lester: i try to leave small scenes around Pathlandia for people to discover.Vanish Seriath: Yes, every time I’m here there’s something new.Pathfinder Lester: also, I’m going to post my blog report on our tour of “The Grey Inn Between” today. lots of pics, too.Vanish Seriath: Hah, I found Matthew.Pathfinder Lester: V, you got it. 😀
Vanish Seriath laughs.Oronoque Westland: is it really me?Pathfinder Lester: i hope so! lolOronoque Westland: hard time getting here todayVanish Seriath: Hi Oro.Ange Menges: hello OronoqueMel Blauvelt: rocking a matroushka avatar Oro?Oronoque Westland: last try from Scooter Graham and I ended up on the new VWER gridPathfinder Lester: whoa, that’s oddOronoque Westland: thought it was a drug induced hallucinationPathfinder Lester: Oro, if you have a chance, could you submit a short ticket about that on http://metaverseheroes.com?Pathfinder Lester: Chris at ReactionGrid is trying to iron out that bug, and she’s tracking everyone who experieneces it on metaverseheroes.Pathfinder Lester: Frank, do you do much hypergrid jumping between the different grids?Frank Avatar: Yes I had one of the 1st HG 1.5 grids in testingPathfinder Lester: nice! so you’ve seen things come a long way, i expect.Frank Avatar: Yes since aug 2007, I can say I have been there done that with opensim 🙂Frank Avatar: I think we have about 2270 regions online totalPathfinder Lester: what are your thoughts on the current fragmented state of the hypergrid? I know many of us are hoping that gets resolved soon so we can jump all over freely.Vanish Seriath: Oh nice, where is that, Frank.Vanish Seriath: (Sorry, I missed the introduction.)Frank Avatar: Many issues with 1.0 has been corrected with the 1.5 HGPathfinder Lester: Frank, what about the current bug that is preventing folks from OSGrid from hypergrid jumping out of OSGrid? do you know any news about that?Oronoque Westland: still sleeping off the flu most of the timeOronoque Westland: phone woke me—I said, if its not Path hang up!Pathfinder Lester: Oro, lolFrank Avatar: From what I am told by my staff, is that OSGRID has a different versionFrank Avatar: we do have regions in OSGRID and we also have a few test regions on another grid that we also use the OSGRID codePathfinder Lester: gotchaOronoque Westland: you are my childhood distraction—being sick as a kid was the only time my parents let me read comic booksPathfinder Lester: well, it must make you happy to be seeing all the different opensim grids growing these days. so much growth in a short time.Ange Menges: So at the moment, the only way to come in osgrid is to create an av on osgrid ?Vanish Seriath: Yes, well, I just encountered someone in an opensim IRC who complained that everything is so empty and nothing’s ‘going on’Pathfinder Lester: Ange, I believe yes.Frank Avatar: I think so also..Oronoque Westland: I have fallen in love with OS…I tour further on my own in OS than I used to in SLVanish Seriath: Well me too. And I build a lot more things than I ever did in SL.Vanish Seriath: (Somewhat out of neccessity, too.)Pathfinder Lester: V, i hear that sometimes too. you don’t often run across large groups of people. but i know many different projects are going on with folks building things.Oronoque Westland: Path is to blame (lol)Oronoque Westland: for the travelOronoque Westland: he has made it seem so easyVanish Seriath: Well, when I joined SL, it was basically the same there.Pathfinder Lester: V, good point.Vanish Seriath: You could walk for hours without meeting a living soul.Oronoque Westland: some areas are still like thatVanish Seriath: Yes, true.Oronoque Westland: that is one reason why JokaydiaGrid has won my heart…never totally emptyPathfinder Lester: it’s still the early pioneering days in opensim, i think. you can wander for hours and not see people. yet you find places where people are actively building many interesting things from scratch.Vanish Seriath: Yes, and we organize differently.Ange Menges: About projects, Path, I will try to present you someone name Enora GreganPathfinder Lester: definitelyVanish Seriath: When you follow twitter or IRC, you can always meet people inworld.Pathfinder Lester: Ange, oh cool. ty.Oronoque Westland: I have to read the blog re:IRC to catch up on thatAnge Menges: She run a project named Explor3DAnge Menges: A bit different from HGACPathfinder Lester: oh wonderful!Ange Menges: first it’s french, lolPathfinder Lester: more explorers!Pathfinder Lester: Ange, c’est bon. I must practice my french. 🙂Oronoque Westland: we have translation devicesOronoque Westland: mais oui PathfinderAnge Menges: and her aim is to bring to virtual worlds people she meet in real life that never came beforeOronoque Westland: nicePathfinder Lester: speaking of finding interesting projects, for today’s tour we’re going to visit a place I discovered in my wandering around NewWorldGrid.Ange Menges: To show them hat is possiblePathfinder Lester: someone who works at CERN (the physics lab in switzerland) has a regionPathfinder Lester: i’ll pass out today’s notecard with our itinerary

— Notecard of Itinerary and Details —-
Before doing any Hypergrid jumps, be sure you have set your Home location and have relogged since you set it. If you don’t, Hypergrid jumps will not work. This appears to be a bug.

Many people find the Imprudence viewer to be very good for using with both SL and other grids. You can find it here: http://imprudenceviewer.org/

*** How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps ***
1) Open your World Map.
2) In the text box next to the Search button, enter the Hypergrid Address.
3) Click the Search button and wait for the map to move to the jump region.
4) Click the Teleport button.

We’ll be making this jump using one of the instant Hypergates on Pathlandia. It’s the stone archway next to the Tardis.. Just walk up to the archway and walk through it. You will automatically make a Hypergrid jump to “HG Gateway 1.”

We’ll make this jump the manual way (see above “How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps.”)

Laasonen Metahotel is a landing place for hypergrid travelers situated in a nice tropical archipelago.

From here we’ll make a local teleport on New World Grid to the region “CERN.” CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch), the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s largest and most respected centres for scientific research. The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions.

This region features some detailed recreations of real life buildings at CERN as well as models of particle accelerators.

***
jokaydiaGRID has a Newbie Dome for folks to pick up freebies that can help them get started. If you find any good freebies in your Hypergrid travels that you’d like to share, you can put them in the Newbie Dome. There’s currently a lack of many good outfits and items for male avatars, so it would be great if we could find more items like that to share.— End of Notecard —

Ange Menges: So I thought that you could have common objectives to speak about togetherOronoque Westland: before we go I discovered what for me is a new way to jumpPathfinder Lester: Ange, that’s wonderful. Thank you !Pathfinder Lester: Oro, what’s that?Oronoque Westland: AJ says put the SLURL in chat and click on itPathfinder Lester: Ange, my email is pathfinder@reactiongrid.com if she wants to email meOronoque Westland: it worksPathfinder Lester: Oro, ah yes! that’s another way to do jumps.Pathfinder Lester: but sometimes I find that it does not always work.Ange Menges: ok at the moment they have only travel on SL but I will host them on francogrid for hypergridOronoque Westland: does anything ALWAYS work heehee?Pathfinder Lester: that’s why i usually recommend folks do the Manual jump.Pathfinder Lester: Oro….good point. ;PPathfinder Lester: perhaps we can try using SLURL hypergrid jumps at our next meeting.Pathfinder Lester: for today’s tour, our first jump will be an instant hypergate one.Pathfinder Lester: then a manual jump to NewWorldGrid.Pathfinder Lester: then a local teleport to the region CERNAnge Menges: oh and Path, I sent you an email with the hypergrid link for christmasPathfinder Lester: Ange, oh cool. i’ll look for it. ty!Pathfinder Lester: so just walk thru this gatePathfinder Lester: and we’ll meet on ReactionGrid 🙂Mel Blauvelt: I hope my Duvel doesn’t get vaporizedPathfinder Lester: i think a bit of alcohol in your system makes the jump easier

Pathfinder Lester: we made itFrank Avatar: 🙂Pathfinder Lester: we’re now on ReactionGridPathfinder Lester: our next jump is manualPathfinder Lester: *** How to make Manual Hypergrid Jumps in 4 easy steps ***
1) Open your World Map.
2) In the text box next to the Search button, enter the Hypergrid Address.
3) Click the Search button and wait for the map to move to the jump region.
4) Click the Teleport button.Pathfinder Lester: and the hypergrid address isPathfinder Lester: regions.newworldgrid.com:13000

We all make a Manual Hypergrid Jump to the region Laasonen on New World Grid.

Pathfinder Lester: successPathfinder Lester: we’re now on the region Laasonen on NewWorldGrid 🙂Frank Avatar: Great!Ange Menges: hehe, nice gardensPathfinder Lester: this place has a nice beachPathfinder Lester: now, we just make a local teleport to the region CERNPathfinder Lester: just search for it on the world mapPathfinder Lester: and make a regular teleportPathfinder Lester: i couldn’t find the hypergrid address of it, so we have to make a hop from here.Oronoque Westland: seems like more grids are taking the needs of hypergriders into accountMel Blauvelt: crosses fingers, let’s hope we don’t tp into a tiny black hole folksPathfinder Lester: Oro, yes!Oronoque Westland: this is a nice welcome area

Pathfinder Lester: yes, looks good for meetings too!Pathfinder Lester: ok, see you on CERN!

We all make a regular local teleport within New World Grid to the region CERN.

Graham Mills: Hey, it’s getting busyOronoque Westland: Graham!Pathfinder Lester: Graham!Oronoque Westland: thought I lost youPathfinder Lester: you beat us to it!Graham Mills: Yes, I took the shortcut — sorry 😦Pathfinder Lester: lolPathfinder Lester: that’s great!Oronoque Westland: SLOODLE!Oronoque Westland: folks after my own heartGraham Mills: Toujours SLOODLEGraham Mills: 🙂Pathfinder Lester: so, this area is being developed by someone who works at CERN in real life.Pathfinder Lester: some models of the particle accellerator devices at CERNPathfinder Lester: and that big dome is a real life buildling at CERN, too.

Vanish Seriath: Nicely done.Graham Mills: Yes, very impressiveVanish Seriath: Is it finished?Pathfinder Lester: we can get hardhats too. lol

Vanish Seriath: Looks a bit empty inside.Oronoque Westland: things are happening hereL1 Loire: Hi allPathfinder Lester: V, i don’t think it’s completely finishedPathfinder Lester: free hardhats over here!L1 Loire: anything to cover up this hair! 😉Graham Mills: I feel much safer nowPathfinder Lester: lolPathfinder Lester: L1! you made it!Pathfinder Lester: great!Pathfinder Lester: i like how they have a pic of the real life accellerator next to the model here.

L1 Loire: never been able to get here at the right time before, glad to be here with youVanish Seriath: Yes, it’s great to compare the model with the pictures.Pathfinder Lester: the other place I wanted to show folks is the Control Center. a model of the real life control center at CERN.Pathfinder Lester: over here….Pathfinder Lester: go inside, but DON’T PUSH BUTTONS. you might explode the accellerator!Graham Mills: lolPathfinder Lester: now THIS is a CONTROL ROOM!

Graham Mills: They saw us comingL1 Loire: wow!!!!Oronoque Westland: is anyone seeing the videos?Vanish Seriath: Heh, I’d love to have all these screens.Vanish Seriath: Would make following things easier.L1 Loire: no videoGraham Mills: There is some video elsewherePathfinder Lester: i’m not seeing video, but i’m using ImprudencePathfinder Lester: i don’t thing video works well with Imprudence yet.Graham Mills: Presumably parcel-based as it was OK for meOronoque Westland: I must come back using HippoL1 Loire: oh, me too, ImprudenceGraham Mills: (I’m in Imprudence)Pathfinder Lester: man, i’d love to have this place as my real life office…Frank Avatar: lolGraham Mills: One day, Path…Pathfinder Lester: lolPathfinder Lester: the creator of all this is Aime SocratesPathfinder Lester: i haven’t met them yet, thoOronoque Westland: nice design…private stations and round tables for collaborationPathfinder Lester: i just stumbled across thisPathfinder Lester: Oro, yes, this is a good example of modelling RL architecture and office layout.

Graham Mills: The reception by the entrance has a few tps to other exhibitsVanish Seriath: It’s really nice.Graham Mills: The LHC is “under construction”Oronoque Westland: Path is looking like a cameleon to mePathfinder Lester: my face is a bit messed upPathfinder Lester: teleporter accident!

L1 Loire: hahahahaGraham Mills: 🙂Graham Mills: or 😦Oronoque Westland: Scotty needs to bean you out and back againOronoque Westland: beam*L1 Loire: I don’t even have euesL1 Loire: eyesPathfinder Lester: looks like all the screens in here are pics of actual screens at CERNPathfinder Lester: Mel, i see you sitting there in front of a workstation. fire up the beam!Pathfinder Lester: discover a new particle!Graham Mills: Yes, shortly before the black hole incident of 2012Pathfinder Lester: lolMel Blauvelt: shhhhhhhMel Blauvelt: they’re not noticing yet Path

L1 Loire: Now I am using my hat like my sleepy students 🙂Graham Mills: I thought it rather, um, jauntyMel Blauvelt: *taps keyboard like a boss*L1 Loire: imagine me slouchingAnge Menges: I would like to see the serious CERN engeneers with a christmas hat, MelPathfinder Lester: L1, lolPathfinder Lester: should we try visiting some of the spots at the help desk?Pathfinder Lester: i haven’t checked those out yetL1 Loire: sure!Mel Blauvelt: absolutely!Oronoque Westland: Mel still has his mug lolGraham Mills: I have to go soon so don’t be surprised if I drop outPathfinder Lester: i’m going to try to visit the “follow a proton”

Oronoque Westland: I really need to try it with Hippo to see how they make use of the videosPathfinder Lester: well, that’s the end of our official tour today 🙂Pathfinder Lester: hope you all had funFrank Avatar: TY PathfinderPathfinder Lester: i’m definitely coming back to explore moreMel Blauvelt: that was awesomeAnge Menges: sure, thank you pathL1 Loire: thanks, Path, glad to see you and to have finally made it to the club!Pathfinder Lester: great to have met you Frank.L1 Loire: nice to meet everyonePathfinder Lester: and L1, so great you could make it. been too long since i’ve seen you last.Oronoque Westland: really nice traveling with you all todayVanish Seriath: Yes, it’s been great, as usual.Pathfinder Lester: have a great rest of the day, everyone. and keep those hardhats handy!Vanish Seriath: You too.Oronoque Westland: yesMel Blauvelt: thanks Path, see you soon all!Ange Menges: bye 🙂Pathfinder Lester: take care, my friends.